


Apostle

by redibis



Series: Absolute and New [1]
Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Biblical References, Blasphemy, Canon Gay Character, Canon Temporary Character Death, Drug Use, Emetophobia, Forced Institutionalization, Gen, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Medical Trauma, Podfic Available, Roman Catholicism, Sex Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-09-27
Packaged: 2018-02-19 00:47:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2368052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redibis/pseuds/redibis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the life and the second life of the Twelfth Disciple of the Undead Prophet.</p><p>Podfic available: [<a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2380037">x</a>]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Apostle

I

You were one year old,

(And you don't remember it, but)

They sprinkled you with water

In the name of the Father, and the Son,

And the Holy Spirit.

Amen. (The fire

Would come later.)

And though they named you

After he who thrice denied Christ,

Simon Peter was also the rock of the Church,

And St Christopher still protected you

Wherever you went.

You learned the word _martyr_

When you were seven,

But you didn't understand

What it meant

To die for a love

So strong.

 

II

At fourteen you started

Getting into fights with the Sisters

About all the questions

They too quickly evaded,

Citing your tender age

As the reason

For your necessary ignorance.

One of them broke your little finger

With her wooden ruler,

So you stopped going to classes.

You spent hours and days

In the library instead,

Wondering whether

The Fruit of the Tree

Of the Knowledge

Of Good and Evil

Was still forbidden,

Or if God had gotten over

That grudge of His yet.

Miracle your father never found out;

It never did heal right.

 

III

At seventeen you came to know Woman,

(Didn't care much for her, Woman).

You read First Samuel and knew

That Jonathan and King David

Were closer than they first appeared.

It had to be a sin

How the curve of

Jesus' stained-glass hip

(Just visible from the pew

If you leaned back

And pretended you were

Full of the Holy Spirit)

Thrilled you so deeply.

You prayed that God would

Send you an angel,

A holy messenger

In the form of a man—

Bearing what message,

You didn't care—

But God, how you prayed.

Maybe God didn't hear,

Or maybe He did, but heard wrong,

Because your earthly father

Found those magazines under your mattress,

Called you Abomination,

And cast you out.

You prayed for those

Who persecuted you

And blessed those

Who cursed you.

"Holy Mary, Virgin of Virgins,

Archangel Raphael,

St Eugene and St Jude,

St Joseph and St Patrick,

Pray for me:

Forgive my father

For he knows not

What he does.

Amen."

You wrote him every week,

Begging absolution, pleading forgiveness,

Promising you had put away childish things.

He engraved _return to sender_

In biro on the envelopes.

Like Father, like Son.

You got used to living alone,

Stopped searching for God in church,

Started searching for anything

That would grow  
  
In the barren salted earth  
  
Of your heart.

 

IV

The years to come seemed waste of breath:

You were twenty-one

When you went to America

Hoping for more

Than the place you crawled out of

On your belly, eating dust.

 _Éirinn go Brách_ only got you so far

With those American boys,

Unrefined and unrepentant,

Shaking the mountains with their dance.

America had already seen

Too many dreams like yours,

Too many needs like yours.

When the foolish took their lamps

They took no oil with them,

But the wise took vessels of oil

With their lamps.

 

V

You set to shaming the saints categorically.

You half prayed to St Vivian,

Whose body even the feral dogs

Wouldn't go near;

Paid for oblivion

In money (when you had it,

Even when you didn't have enough;

Paid in what you learned

From the Song of Songs

When you didn't have the money.

The word of the Lord.)

You pawned St Christopher for twenty quid

And spent it on whatever

Would feel most like

Spitting in your father's face.

On your back, in hotels,

You saw such stars

In the firmament

Of those crumbling plaster ceilings.

It tasted a little like Heaven.

St Sebastian's martyring arrows

Pierced your skin,

Pricked your forearms,

Filled you with the angels' fire,

With dirty holy light.

 

VI

One night your sacred visions disappeared,

St Sebastian was gone,

You were just alone in a hotel,

And the Heavens were empty.

You never were good at maths,

Or at looking too closely at what you got

And where it came from.

You didn't believe in anything

Quite enough for it to matter much:

_A waste of breath the years behind;_

_In balance with this life, this death._

They said it was an accident.

 

VII

(And you don't remember it, but)

Your father got a call the next morning

And he went to hospital.

You were stretched out on the table,

Pale as a winter sunset.

Your father said,

"Though He slay me,

Yet will I trust in Him,"

Crossed himself—

Father, Son, Holy Spirit,

Amen— and left. They buried you.

Your mother keened;

The sins of the father

Visited upon the son?

She wondered what on Earth

She had done wrong.

The weight of earth

Crushed all the air in your lungs.

There was no angel

To tell you _fear not_.

(And you don't remember it, but)

You were hungry,

And they gave you no meat.

You were a stranger,

And they let you not in.

Whoso curseth

His father or mother,

Let his blood be

On his own head:

Thou shalt not kill.

You caught her in a corner;

This do in remembrance of Me.

 

VIII

However long you were asleep,

It was four days to you.

Like Lazarus.

You woke up, arms outstretched—

Jesus was not there.

You asked, "Where

Am I?"

 

IX

The voice spoke to you;

It quoted the Revelation

And you told yourself _fear not_.

 

X

Your father

Could not look you in your mica-silver eyes—

Coins for eyes,

St Peter's coins,

Judas' coins.

You did not try again,

Did not pray to St Jude again.

 

XI

The voice spoke to you;

It quoted the Revelation,

Promised _incorruptible_.

You won your freedom by

The stripes of your own back;

Jesus was not there.

 

XII

Your father came again,

The day the two men

Told you it was time to go home—

You didn't remember home.

Your father stared at you

Across the dining room table,

Where years ago

You'd asked, "May I be excused, sir",

For the last time, age thirteen.

He saw

Your intravenous stigmata

(A few inches misplaced);

Remembered

Your ungodly communion,

Your profane eucharist,

And he was afraid.

He cast you out a second time,

And in the bushes by the side of the road

You threw up the fish and chips

He'd bought for supper that night—

Bitter black vomit

That stung your throat.

 

XIII

Forty days you wandered,

Refused temptation,

Then sought out your own kind;

Showed up late,

The last one, the Twelfth.

There was no one

To tell you,

"One of you shall surely betray me."

(And you don't remember it, but)

In the back of your mind,

God finally heard

What you so long ago prayed,

And He quietly whispered,

_Thou hast said._


End file.
